(commander) by his troops on the field of battle.
With the support of his partners, Pompey and Crassus, in the First Triumvirate, Caesar was elected consul in 59 BCE and successfully proposed a popular law redistributing public lands (ager publicus) to the poor. He also managed, in the face of “conservative” opposition, to be allotted as his proconsular command (the command that an ex-consul was given after his term of office) not one but three provinces: Illyricum (the Balkans), Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and later also Transalpine Gaul (southern France). (Suetonius, Julius, 19.2.)
Caesar expanded Roman territory by his conquest of what was known as Gallia Comata (long-haired Gaul or northern France), which he publicized himself in his book De Bello Gallico (The Gallic War), inflicted on generations of schoolchildren right up to the present day.
Caesar’s command had been extended to 50 BCE, by which time the Triumvirate had collapsed. Crassus had been killed in battle against the Parthians in 53 BCE; and Pompey had changed sides and become the champion of the Optimates, who now controlled the Senate and, unprecedentedly, made Pompey sole consul in 52 BCE. When Caesar’s command ended in 50 BCE, he was ordered to disband his army and return to Rome as a private citizen, exposing him to possible prosecution. Instead, on January 10, 49 BCE, he chose to cross the Rubicon (the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy) with an armed legion, famously remarking (apparently in Greek) “the die is cast”. (Plutarch, Pompey, 60.2; Plutarch, Caesar, 32.8.4; Suetonius, Divus Julius.)
Caesar was now at war with the Republic, which had entrusted its fortunes to Pompey. After Caesar’s decisive victory over Pompey at Pharsalus in Greece in July 48 BCE, Caesar entered Rome as a conquering hero. He was named dictator, then won a second consulship in an election presided over by himself, and resigned his dictatorship after eleven days. In 48 BCE, he was named dictator again, this time for a year. Then in 46 BCE, after a few foreign interludes, he was named dictator for a year yet again and was designated as dictator for nine further years. As if this was not enough, Caesar was also elected to serve as consul (simultaneously with his dictatorship) three more times, for 46, 45, and 44 BCE. Julius Caesar was now king in all but name. To drive the point home, in early 44 BCE, he was named dictator perpetuo or dictator in perpetuum (dictator in perpetuity), the precise meaning of which is explained below. In accepting this title, Caesar effectively signed his own death warrant. Caesar was seen by the Optimates as threatening to bring to an end the 450-year-old Republic, and about sixty of them conspired to assassinate him, which occurred on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BCE, one of the best-known dates in history.
It was Caesar’s undoubted popularity with the masses coupled with his arrogance and habit of plain speaking that caused his downfall. He is said, for example, to have remarked “…that the Republic was nothing but a name, without substance or form; that Sulla had acted like an idiot by laying down the dictatorship; and that people ought to be more careful when speaking with him, and should take what he says as law.”. (Suetonius, Ibid., 77.) Above all, not only was he unable to resist accepting most of the exceptional honours which were showered upon him, but he also did not seem to have recognized the likely backlash from the Optimates. According to Suetonius, among other honours accorded to him was the title Pater Patriae (Father of the Nation); several statues of himself, including one next to those of the seven kings of Rome; and a college of priests dedicated to himself. When, “…amidst the immoderate and unusual acclamations of the people….” (Ibid., 79), a man in the adulating throng placed on one of Caesar’s statues a laurel crown encircled with a white fillet, a symbol of royalty, and two tribunes ordered the fillet to be removed and the man responsible for placing it there to be imprisoned, Caesar reprimanded the tribunes and dismissed them from office. This gave the impression, welcomed by the populace and feared by the Optimates, that he aspired to make himself king although when hailed by the people as rex (king), he responded jocularly, “I am Caesar, not Rex”, Rex being a name as well as a title. And when his staunch supporter Mark Antony, as consul, on several occasions placed a laurel crown on Caesar’s head, Caesar waved it aside and ordered it to be taken to the temple of Jupiter. (Ibid., 79.)
Caesar probably did not cry “Et tu, Brute?” (“You, too, Brutus?”), as suggested by Shakespeare, nor even, in Greek, “Kai su, teknon?” (“You, too, my child?”), as rather skeptically suggested by Suetonius and Cassius Dio, when he was stabbed by Marcus Junius Brutus, whom Caesar had taken under his wing. (Suetonius, Divus Julius, 84; Cassius Dio, 44.19.)
So out of touch with reality were Caesar’s assassins that, according to Plutarch, they marched to the Capitol proudly brandishing their daggers full of confidence and fondly imagining that they would be fêted for saving the Republic and restoring “liberty.” (Plutarch, Caesar, 67.3.)
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, even Caesar’s close friend, Mark Antony, was apparently unsure which way the wind was blowing. Plutarch, in his Life of Antony, says that Antony even gave the conspirators his son as a hostage, and entertained a leading conspirator, Cassius, to dinner while Lepidus, Caesar’s master of the horse (lieutenant to Caesar as dictator), did the same for Brutus. (Plutarch, Antony, 13.) As consul, Antony convened the Senate, spoke in favour of an amnesty and of allotting provincial commands to both Brutus and Cassius and proposed a law abolishing the position of dictator forever. The Senate ratified these proposals, while voting to honour Caesar by giving him the posthumous title divus (the divine Julius), making him a minor deity, and confirming all Caesar’s reforms (Plutarch, Caesar, 67.7; Antony, 14.)
Armed with his new command, Brutus issued coins with the motto LEIBERTAS, the old-fashioned spelling of libertas (liberty), and others with the legend EID MAR, an abbreviation for (the again intentionally archaic spelling of) Idibus Martiis meaning “on the Ides of March”, together with a pileus (cap of liberty given to newly enfranchised slaves) and two daggers, celebrating Caesar’s assassination. On the obverse was a portrait of Brutus described as imp(erator), general. Mary Beard opines, “The portrayal of a living person on a Roman coin was taken as a sign of autocratic power.” (Beard, p. 295.) Brutus certainly did not have “autocratic power,” but was that what he was aiming at? Almost certainly not. The portrait of a living person on a coin was decidedly rare, but the name Brutus was closely identified in the Roman psyche with a fervent anti-monarchical tradition. Marcus Brutus himself claimed descent from the founder of the republic, Lucius Junius Brutus, who, according to persistent tradition, had been instrumental in ending the monarchy in 509 BCE, some 450 years earlier and whose portrait had appeared on coins minted by Marcus Brutus as moneyer at some time between 59 and 54 BCE. With the legends EID MAR, the date of Caesar’s assassination, and LEIBERTAS, the watchword of the oligarchic republic, the message conveyed by Brutus’s coins was not that he was aiming at autocratic power, but that he had emulated his iconic ancestor by liberating Rome from a tyrant who had enslaved it.
The populace, however, were incensed at the murder of their idol as the assassins soon learned when an unruly crowd descended on their houses intent on burning them down. As part of his lifelong devotion to the popular cause, in his will, Caesar bequeathed to the Roman people his gardens near the Tiber, and left every Roman man 300 sesterces.
Caesar’s Heir
Probably the most significant provision of Caesar’s will was his adoption of his nineteen-year-old great-nephew, Gaius Octavius who also inherited three quarters of his substantial estate. But before he could take power, he had to emerge victorious from a two-stage civil war, first against the conspirators and then against his erstwhile fellow triumvir Mark Antony.
Emerging victorious in 31 BCE from the Battle of Actium against Antony, the young Caesar established a new form of government, which, with modifications, was to last for three centuries, with repercussions down to the present day. But what sort of government was this to be? There is a great deal of confusion among modern writers about the nature and even
